Gatefather by Orson Scott Card Page A

I’ll help you. As long as you arrange it so they don’t know I’m the windmage.”
    â€œSeriously?”
    â€œI can’t gate away from assassins, Wad. My best armor is to be a soapmaker and nothing else, as far as anybody knows.”
    â€œThen how can I arrange the demonstrations I need?”
    â€œBring them near where I’m making soap. I don’t actually have to be watching when I whip up a tight little tornado. The kind that can drive a dart a thousand times faster and harder than an arrow. The wind shows me where it is, where everything is. I can feel it. Trust me, Wad. You can make gates when you’re a thousand miles away, right?”
    â€œMore like a few billion miles,” said Wad. “I remade all of Danny North’s gates after he gave them to me.”
    â€œOn Earth? From here?”
    â€œI’m really good at what I do,” said Wad. “But so are you. So yes, I’ll bring them into the city. Or maybe we go out in the woods at a time when I’ve arranged for you to be having a picnic or something. As long as you act as scared as everyone else—you don’t even have to be good at acting. These aren’t geniuses we’ll be working with.”
    â€œI know you’re trying to do good things, Wad. I know you’re trying to save the world. I don’t know if it’s true but I believe that you believe it. So yes, I’ll help. After what happened to Anonoei, I know that mages can be evil. And if I had seen that bitch queen set Anonoei on fire, I’d have driven a splinter through her brain in a hot second.”
    â€œI’m glad to know that you’re not a complete pacifist,” said Wad.
    â€œI’m not a pacifist at all. I’m just not an assassin. And besides, you know that Anonoei couldn’t help but make me fall a little bit in love with her and feel real loyalty toward her. My teacher made fun of her as a habitual rapist of the souls of men. Even as I felt it, he made sure I realized it was just her magery. But that didn’t make the feelings go away.”
    â€œIt never does,” said Wad.
    â€œWhich is the reason why I think my dreams matter. Did she leave something behind in me? Is that why I’m still thinking about her?”
    â€œCould be,” said Wad. “She told me she left a little bit of her inside of everybody she needed to … influence.”
    â€œIncluding you?” asked Ced.
    â€œI assume so.”
    â€œSo are you still feeling drawn to her? Dreaming about her?”
    â€œNo,” said Wad.
    â€œToo bad,” Ced replied. “I was kind of hoping that it meant she was still alive somehow. Trying to talk to me. But why would she talk to me? I was never anything to her.”
    â€œShe was a memorable woman,” said Wad.
    â€œWhen are we going to Drabway?” asked Ced.
    â€œAs soon as I can make arrangements for a proper shop for you. In the right part of town.”
    â€œGood. Because I’ve got unfinished business here.”
    â€œWhat kind of business? Your teacher says you’ve learned all he can teach.”
    â€œBut I haven’t learned all that I can learn. Besides, even though I’m no kind of treemage, I’ve come to know this wood … intimately.”
    â€œYou want time to say goodbye to the trees,” said Wad.
    â€œMore or less. To tickle their branches. To touch the buds and leaves of spring. Nice thing about being a windmage—I can touch a million things at once.”
    So Wad gated to Drabway and within a couple of days he had rented a shop that once belonged to a baker who ran afoul of one of the rich families of the city. He only had to promise that nobody would make bread there. Otherwise the price was right and the place was alongside a wide and busy street, so it would serve Wad’s purposes just fine. Ced’s, too.
    But as he performed these errands in Drabway, his mind kept